[Goober5000]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

This weekend I met someone who had synesthesia - an interesting crossing of the senses.  For example, each letter of the alphabet was associated with a color, and sounds had shades of color.  Bells ringing caused the air to be tinged with blue and green, while screeching brakes were a painful orange.  And white noise wasn't white; instead it was a rather annoying shade of gray.  The word "exit" was green, which drives her nuts whenever she sees a red EXIT sign.

Has anyone else met anyone like this?  I was positively fascinated.  It felt like living in a community of blind people, and one day meeting someone who could see.

EDIT: That led to a funny situation.  Our group was walking down a street of shops, and I asked her what the word "raisin" looked like, since it was on a sign on the store next to us.  She rattled off a series of colors, pointing to each letter in sequence.  The people walking by us on the sidewalk stared, looking very confused -- not staring at her, but at the word (which was painted all in red), as if they were trying to see the colors she was describing.

[Mars]

No, not most of the time, one of my freinds tried some sort of hellusinogen (LSD, Pyote, shrooms) and had that (so I understand) for the duration of their high

[Rictor]

Sounds interesting. Obviously, no one can know quite what it's like unless they've actually lived with it, but it sounds like an interesting affliction (from the point of view of someone who doesn't have it, I'm sure it's not much fun for them).

[NGTM-1R]

Not at that level, no...

I do associate certain songs with certain activities, sometimes certain activities with certain other activities.

Reading the first Star Wars novel I got way back in 1994 or so is forever associated with music from the time, because my first actual bothering to use the clock-radio was contemporanous. It doesn't feel quite right when I go back and read it now if listening to different, or no, music.

[achtung]

Not at that level, no...

I do associate certain songs with certain activities, sometimes certain activities with certain other activities.

Reading the first Star Wars novel I got way back in 1994 or so is forever associated with music from the time, because my first actual bothering to use the clock-radio was contemporanous. It doesn't feel quite right when I go back and read it now if listening to different, or no, music.

That's merely recalling a memory.  Just like people with PTSD associate certain sounds and activities with whatever memory troubles them.

[karajorma]

I remember seeing a show about it a few years ago. This pub landlord was saying that one of regulars had a name that tasted like jam

[aceofspades]

I read about this SciAm a while ago, and recall being fascinated. It described the way they verified cases of it: show someone a page covered by, say, 3s (ie the digit), except for a couple of, say, 7s (depending on what case of synesthesia the person has), scattered in the center in the shape of a circle or something. If the person says that 7s induce the color blue, they will immediately see the hidden 7s because a blue circle will stand out on the page.

[Alpha0]

I once met a person that was seeing numbers as colors. He could also visualize the sequence of numbers, from 1 to whatever, arranged in a helix-like chain formation, with each number occupying a very specific place in the helix. I don't know if this sounds comprehensible enough, but that's how he was describing it to me. The very interesting and impressive side effect of this was that he could remember huge numbers as "color strips".  When I first heard him talking about it, I was not entirely convinced, so I wrote down on paper a random 41-digit number and told him to look at it and repeat it to me afterwards. He stared at the paper for three minutes and then he wrote it down on another piece oif paper exactly as it was. I was stunned. The scariest part was that he could remember the 41-digit number even two months later. It appears that this particular charisma may also be genetic. The guy told me that his daughter had the same capability as well.

Needless to say I was mostly impressed with said person, especially as I had no previous information or any experience with this sort of kind of sensory perception.  Just goes to show what the human brain can be capable of...

[karajorma]

I'll bet you no one has ever cracked his password

[Mars]

Hope he can type fast.

[aceofspades]

Inicdentally, I'm one of those people who used to know 250 decimal digits of pi. But I stopped memorizing, so I gradually forgot and now I only know 50. pi=3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510...

[IceFire]

Sounds interesting.  Sounds like one of those things that isn't necessarily a problem at all and with the guy who can remember huge sequences of numbers this may be our brains trying to evolve or cope with the types of things it has to do today.  Maybe in 10,000 years we'll all have it

[Mars]

Yeah, somone like that is probably "fitter" than the rest of us in todays society.

[aldo_14]

Sounds interesting.  Sounds like one of those things that isn't necessarily a problem at all and with the guy who can remember huge sequences of numbers this may be our brains trying to evolve or cope with the types of things it has to do today.  Maybe in 10,000 years we'll all have it

Hmm.  What a useful talent that would be.